I don’t know if it is because I am the father of three little girls or what, but I was just looking at my phone and thinking about all the church apps I have for being at church on Sunday.

Feel free to judge me by my apps:

I wonder if this is just because church is 3 hours long and it is easier to pocket a phone than haul scriptures, coloring books, crayons, quiet books, friends, toys, etc.

Most used are:

Most used by me: LDS tools- always using it to visit other members, call other members, etc. Close second, Gospel Library.

Most used by the family- read the scriptures. Helps keep us on track to read as a family, BUT the app breaks a lot, save your money and just use the website.

Most used by the 2 year old- Primary sing along. She is hooked on “I Am A Child Of God”

Most used by the 5 year old- Coloring games are a big hit here.

Most used by the 8 year old- Where’s the water trumps church games generally, but she’ll play Lamanite or Jonah.

What church apps do you have/use?

One of Neal A. Maxwell’s most memorable themes was that we have nothing but our wills to give God that was not already his. As he put it, “The many other things we ‘give’ are actually the things He has already given or loaned to us” (Neal A. Maxwell, If Thou Endure It Well, Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1996, pg. 55.). He expounded on this theme frequently and his reasoning seemed to hinge on the idea that whatever thing we think is ours is really God’s because he enabled us to obtain it in one way or other. We could not have it without air to breath, or earth to live on, etc. etc. (more…)

There once was an army of soldiers who considered themselves to be fighting a war which must be won at all costs.  What this war was over or who the enemy was are both questions that need not concern us here.   What matters for now is that any other objectives which these soldiers might have also valued in life paled in comparison to the primary objective of victory.  Accordingly, the goodness or desirability of these other goals or ends was essentially measured in terms of the degree to which they tended toward victory in this war rather than defeat. (more…)

A great deal of my thought surrounding the nature of (R)eligious, (S)cientific and (P)ragmatic (or pre-modern, modern and post-modern) approaches to truth is based in the premise that rule-following is the only path to truth.  Empirical observation, logical deduction and everything in between only get us anywhere inasmuch as they are normatively constrained by rules of various kinds.  In this post I would like to briefly unpack this position in terms of a familiar metaphor. (more…)

If I were to be stranded on an island with nothing but three books to keep me company there is no doubt that two of them would be Darwin’s Dangerous Idea and Godel, Escher, Bach.  When taken together, these two books provide almost the entire thrust behind this post-scientistic, neo-pragmatic mind-set in which I currently find myself. (more…)